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Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese 1475-Rome 1564)

The head of the Virgin c.1540

Black chalk | 21.2 x 14.2 cm, top corners cut (sheet of paper) | RCIN 912764

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  • A study of the head of a young woman. The edges of the headdress hint at an exotic helmet, and the severe beauty of the face might even suggest that the subject is a young warrior; accordingly, the drawing was formerly thought to have been a finished ‘presentation drawing’, of the kind given to Tommaso de’ Cavalieri in the early 1530s (see RCIN 912766, 912771, 912777). But the identity of the subject is established by a sheet in a private collection, copying a lost drawing by Michelangelo, depicting the Virgin cradling a muscular Christ Child in her arms, in which the head of the Virgin is almost exactly as seen here (repr. P. Joannides, Michelangelo and his Influence, 1996, p. 37). The composition may have been intended for another artist to paint, like many of Michelangelo’s pictorial compositions in the latter part of his career. Almost all of his Virgins wear elaborate headgear of some sort, and the form here is seen again in a sequence of drawings of the Annunciation (British Museum; Uffizi; Morgan Library) for paintings by Marcello Venusti.

    On the verso of the sheet is another study of a woman’s head, even more delicately drawn, with light outlines and the modelling barely visible. The attribution of this study has been doubted, but there seems no reason to deny it to Michelangelo. The type and pose of the head, tilted and with downcast eyes, is strongly reminiscent of studies by Verrocchio and Leonardo from decades earlier (cf. Leonardo’s Leda, 912516-8, and St Anne, 912533)

    Also on the verso is the inscription MAngolo. 1.4. This is in the hand associated with the English seventeenth-century dealer William Gibson, whose inscriptions and characteristic 'price codes’ can be found on at least 51 drawings in the Royal Collection. Jonathan Richardson the Elder explained Gibson's pricing system whereby the second figure is the unit - 1 for a shilling, 2 for half a crown, 3 for a crown (5 shillings) and 4 for a pound (20 shillings); a price code of 1.4 would indicate that the drawing was priced at one pound.

    Like many other drawings with an English seventeenth-century provenance, the top corners of this sheet have been cropped, perhaps to be placed in a decorative mount. This cropping could be indicative of a particular collector or could represent a more general fashion adopted by English collectors at that time; some 14 of the 51 drawings in the Royal Collection with Gibson inscriptions have been cropped in this way (though none of the drawings with the star marks associated with Nicholas Lanier have been cropped), and a further 29 Italian Renaissance drawings without collectors' marks have been shaped in the same manner. It is likely that all these drawings were acquired for the Royal Collection in the seventeenth century, most probably during the reign of Charles II.

    Provenance

    William Gibson (his inscription and price mark, MAngolo 1.4.); probably acquired by Charles II; listed in George III's 'Inventory A,' c.1800-20, p. 43 'Mich: Angelo Buonarroti. / Tom. I.' (c. 1802): '2. 'Woman's Head….Black Chalk'

  • Medium and techniques

    Black chalk

    Measurements

    21.2 x 14.2 cm, top corners cut (sheet of paper)


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